A couple of weeks ago I attended the annual conference of the National Stuttering Association in Scottsdale, Arizona. Why anyone schedules a conference in Scottsdale in July is beyond me ...

“Set a watch, Lord, beside my mouth and a door about my lips.” Psalm 38:1 The art of living is the knowledge of knowing when to speak and when to ...

“But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you.” Matthew 5:44 Those who would say ...

The art of living demands that persons be willing to commit themselves, to have convictions, and to act even though one does not have perfect knowledge or clear foresight. Aristotle ...

A Seton mother once mentioned a terrible problem her daughter was having with scruples regarding the Eucharist. Obviously, no one is actually worthy of such an intimate participation in the ...

“Love, and do what you will.” St. Augustine of Hippo There are many virtues that we might name: honesty, modesty, magnanimity, prudence, and temperance, for example. Suppose that we were ...

Amid the general attack on Christian virtue in this modern world, it is sometimes all too easy to lose sight of individual virtues. The open floodgates of vicious behavior submerge ...

The Devil thrives on conflict and dissension. Division or “legion” is his name. Whether it is wars between nations, heresy or schism in the Church, or divorce in families, the ...

When I was about five or six years old, I remember that my maternal grandmother had a beautiful garden in her backyard that she spent many hours cultivating. Among her ...

Graduation from high school is a big deal.  Earning the diploma is a real rite of passage in a young person’s life and should be recognized by great celebration.  Although ...

When I was perhaps eleven or twelve years old, I happened upon a piece of music called Once Upon a Time. It was from a Broadway play that I had ...

In the Odyssey, Homer’s epic about the family as the center of civilization portrays two ways of life—the civilized and the barbaric. The civilized dwell in homes, the barbaric in ...

by Ken Clark Over the years, people have asked us to bind our books in different ways. 1. Perfect Binding There are two main ways that textbook publishers bind books. ...

The old phrase “hate the sin, but love the sinner” reveals a deeply Christian sentiment. Yes, we see sin as the greatest offense against God, but we don’t consider the ...

In Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking” the narrator spends an entire day from morning till evening picking all the apples before the first frost of the season. He has spent the ...

A person can live in a narrow world or a wider universe. He can live in a state of stagnation with no goals or ambitions, or keep his life in ...

Certain things in life seem common to all men.  The physical things are the most obvious: we all need to eat and to sleep, and we all need shelter.  But ...

The most important final preparation for college lies in seeing to your continued spiritual health once you are away from home and on your own.  The basics are quite clear, ...

By Fr. Charles C. Fiore, (1934 -2003) Every Catholic knows the primacy of love in the Christian life. Jesus’ words (Mt. 19:19 and 22:37) about love of God and love ...

Roger Ebert, the Chicago-based film critic who died recently, wrote that the first thing that really pushed him away from practicing his Catholic faith was his unwillingness to confess certain ...